The Genetic Code of the Culture: Literary Archetypes and Cycles of the Russian Middle Ages

Abstract

The article is devoted to the emergence of the medieval picture of the world in the Russian literature XI-XVII centuries. Special attention is paid to the formation of a system of literary archetypes and cycles, which then formed the basis of the Russian philosophical and artistic thought. Among them the first of the first were numinous archetypes, which characterized the most important aspect of the religious experience associated with the intense feeling of the divine presence. Numinous archetypes for centuries have defined the nature of the medieval Russian literature:
the penetration into the image of God is the most ideal constant of culture and the highest point in its spiritual aspiration. Those archetypes are considered in connection with the other primeval images that make up the medieval picture of the world: God — World — Man.